One last report on the AACC/ASCLS conference.
What
do you get when you combine techno music, pulsing neon light, flashing
LED badges, Lance Armstrong-style rubber wristbands, a free buffet, and
five open bars?
Labs Are Vital. The Abbott launch of a truly important initiative.
Jeffrey R. Binder, President of Abbott Diagnostics and Senior Vice
President of Operations for Abbott, announced a new program to address
the biggest problem facing the healthcare laboratory: the coming
shortage of qualified laboratory workers.
In the last 25 years, more than 600 schools and university programs for
medical technology have closed. In 2012 we will need 138,000 laboratory
scientists, but at best there will be 42,000 available. (source)
Why? Low salaries for workers mean less interest in the profession.
Worse still, the schools and programs face high expenses. Providing
instruments and other devices necessary to properly train technologists
is not cheap.
Here's where Labs are Vital comes in. At this event, Abbott announced a
new $1 million dollar donation program - schools and programs can apply
for free instruments, reagents, and service. AACC past president,
Stephen Kahn, PhD and Bernie Bekken, President of ASCLS, were present
to welcome this new effort.
It's good to see that Abbott recognizes a critical reality: While
Abbott may be comfortably profitable, their future profits are in
jeopardy if there aren't enough workers to run their instruments. Not
only do the schools need to be supported, but the profession itself
needs to be supported. Labs and lab workers need some better public
relations - and they need to get out of the basement. In the
increasingly cost-stressed healthcare system, the anonymous role of the
laboratory worker means out of sight, out of compensation. Labs Are
Vital hopes to raise the profile of the laboratory worker and make more
of them.
Abbott noted that the Labs are Vital program would be non-branded and
invited participation by other diagnostic companies. This part is key.
For any real initiative to succeed, it can't simply be a marketing
effort by a single company. It's an easy PR move for a company to make
a donation. But if the initiative is strongly identified with just one
company, there is less incentive for other companies to participate.
How will the other companies react? Will they join the effort? Will they create their own? We'll see.
-----